New Family Law Lecture Series Honors Professor Weyrauch

The inaugural Weyrauch Distinguished Lecture in Family Law, presented by the Center on Children and Families, will be held Thursday, Nov. 2, at noon in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom.

Named in honor of Professor Walter O. Weyrauch, internationally known for his work in foreign and family law, this year’s lecture will feature speaker David Meyer of the University of Illinois, a leading scholar in family law and constitutional law. Meyer’s lecture is titled “Palmore Comes of Age: The Place of Race in the Placement of Children.“

“We are delighted that our colleague Walter Weyrauch has agreed to allow the Center on Children and Families to name an annual lecture in his honor,” said UF Law Professor Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, David H. Levin Chair in Family Law and director of the Center on Children and Families.

“For 40 years, Walter has made his mark as a teacher, scholar and role model of intellectual vigor and creativity to hundreds if not thousands of students at UF. We are proud to have the lecture series named after such a distinguished and admired colleague.”

A reception in the Schott Courtyard will follow the lecture. Weyrauch came to the United States from Germany in 1952 and joined the UF law faculty in 1957 as an associate professor of law. Today, he is a distinguished professor of law and Stephen C. O’Connell Chair at the law school, honorary professor of law at Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, Germany, and editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law.

Weyrauch has taught business organizations, comparative law, conflict of laws, contracts, family law, law and society, legal counseling and philosophy, multinational corporate enterprise and autonomous informal lawmaking. He has been honored with the Golden Doctor Diploma from the University of Frankfurt Faculty of Law, the Florida Blue Key Distinguished Faculty Award, and the Legislative Professional Excellence Program Award. He was named Teacher of the Year in 1984.

Weyrauch has authored numerous books, including Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Tradtins and Culture (2001), and co-authored the text for his family law course, Cases and materials on Family Law: Legal Concepts and Changing Human Relationships. His 50-plus monographs, articles and review essays have been published in the Stanford Law Review, Florida Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review and American Journal of Comparative Law, among others.

Meyer’s recent articles have appeared in the University of Chicago Legal Forum, Minnesota Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review, among other journals. He is a frequent participant in symposia and conferences and has presented papers in Europe, Canada, and throughout the United States.

Meyer received his B.A. in History with highest honors and his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan, where he also served as editor-in-chief of the Michigan Law Review. He clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Byron R. White on the United States Supreme Court. He also served as a Legal Advisor to the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague and practiced law in Washington, D.C., and Chicago before joining the Illinois faculty in 1996.